Sore must be the storm
by Linndechir
Summary: Selyse told him it would be a boy, and he wanted to believe her.


Author's note: Written for the first round of got_exchange on livejournal.

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><p><strong>Sore must be the storm<strong>

Selyse reminded herself to walk slowly – the maester had told her to be careful, that even though it did not show yet, too much excitement could cause her to lose the child, and she would not risk that. She had waited for this day for months, ever since her wedding. The guards in front of her husband's study, clad in Baratheon black and gold, gave her a curious look when she arrived. They were not used to seeing her anywhere near Stannis' chambers, but they let her pass without question. In her excitement she even forgot to knock.

"What?" she heard her husband snap, before the door was entirely opened, but for once even the irritation in his voice couldn't darken her mood. He looked up, his brow furrowed in annoyance, it always was. Yet he put down the quill when he saw her and got up – no one could ever accuse him of not being courteous enough with her. "My lady. Forgive me, I did not expect you."

There was alwas something stiff about his manner, her very presence seemed to make him uncomfortable, and almost a year of marriage had not changed that. She curtseyed and smiled at him, but that only seemed to increase his discomfort.

"I have good news, my lord, news that warrants disturbing you at your work." His frown deepened, not to her surprise. He probably couldn't imagine anything that warranted an interruption. He had never slept in her bed again after the wedding night, but Selyse had been told that he was up every morning before sunrise. His brother's disinterest in matters of state only seemed to make Stannis take his duties as Master of Ships all the more seriously. The look on his face was impatient, but her smile didn't waver.

"I'm with child."

His eyes widened in surprise, but most of all he looked suspicious. He always seemed wary, even of good news or compliments, as if expecting a slight or a jibe.

"Are you certain?"

"I just spoke with the maester, my lord. _He_ is certain."

Stannis made a few steps towards her, his gaze straying to her belly before he met her eyes again. And slowly, as if he didn't trust himself to get it right, he began to smile. She had never seen him smile before – not on their wedding day, when the feast and the dancing had seemed nothing but a nuisance to him. Certainly not during the wedding night his brother had ruined, but not in any other night they had spent together either. Stannis had never been cruel to her, never been rough or hurtful, but he seemed to take no pleasure in his marital duties. Truth be told, she was grateful that he was always quick about it, for she found no more enjoyment in his touches than he did. Most of the time he frowned even then, a hard, concentrated look on his face that barely faltered even when he finished.

But now the corners of his mouth turned upward, and the smile even reached his eyes, those serious, hard, sad eyes that were always full of anger and judgement, never of joy. He seemed to struggle for words, and when his voice failed him he walked over to her. He was tense as he put an arm around her shoulder, even tenser when his lips brushed her forehead in an awkward attempt at a kiss. Other than during the wedding ceremony, he had never kissed her either.

"It will be a boy, I promise," she said when he still remained quiet. It felt strange to lean against him, to feel his broad frame against her own body. Stannis disliked it when she touched him, barely offered her his arm at court, never was one for tenderness even in bed. But in this moment he did not seem to mind, his arm even tightened a little around her. She could feel the strength in his body, and for the first time it made her skin tingle pleasantly.

"How can you know?" He was frowning, she knew, but she could hear the hope in his voice. At their engagement he had already told her that he expected her to give him a son, had admitted bluntly that it was his only reason for marrying at all. The thought of it seemed to be the only thing that ever brought some light into his eyes; even his voice sounded different when he talked about the heir he hoped for.

"Women know these things, my lord. My mother said that she always knew it would be a boy when she was carrying my brothers, and I feel the same now." The fabric of his tunic was rough against her cheek when she leant against him, but it felt good, it felt oddly safe. For the first time she understood what the other ladies meant when they talked about how much they enjoyed their husbands' embraces. Even Stannis looked a changed man – younger with the perpetual frown almost gone from his brow, and that glimmer of hope in his dark blue eyes made them seem more alive, like his brother Robert's. His hand moved on her shoulder, petting her, clumsily, but she appreciated the effort alone.

"His name will be Steffon," Stannis said after a while, his voice quiet and tense with suppressed feeling. "After my father. He was a good man."

She nodded, smiling against his shoulder. It was a good name for a healthy, strong little boy. She imagined their son looking like young Lord Renly, sweet and pretty with wild black hair and blue eyes that weren't as hard as his father's. And maybe, maybe her husband would even love her a little if she gave him what he wanted most. It seemed odd to think of Stannis loving anyone, but just this morning she would have said the same about him smiling. She felt him tense up even more before he broke the embrace and stepped back, as if the physical closeness had embarrassed him.

"I will leave you to your work, my lord," she said quickly, not wanting to outstay her welcome. Even though he never hurt her, there was something frightening about him when he became angry.

He nodded quietly and she turned to leave, but his hand on the crook of her arm held her back. The other hand, broad and scarred, hands she had never liked to feel on her body until now, came to rest on her belly, a light touch, almost shy, although she couldn't say if his reluctance was born out of discomfort or concern.

"You must take care," he urged, those intense blue eyes piercing hers as if to stare right through her. "You must not lose the child."

He sounded as desperate as if his life depended on it, and this time it was her turn to nod before she left him. Her smile seemed to confuse the guards outside, but Selyse decided that they had better get used to it. She was planning on smiling more often now.

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><p>"It's a girl." The words were like a knife thrust between his ribs, sudden searing pain that almost blinded him. And as he still staggered trying to grasp what the maester had said, the old man twisted the blade, his voice exhausted, but calm, patient. "They're both very weak, mother and daughter. The girl is small, and the birth was hard on your wife. To be quite honest, I'm not sure when, <em>if<em> she will be able to have another child."

Stannis swallowed hard, one shivering hand groping for the wall. He had spent hours waiting in the hallway, pacing, wincing at every scream that came from his wife's chambers, but every time he also felt a flicker of hope, that it wouldn't be long now before he would hold his son in his arms.

Eight months of anticipation, and his joyless marriage had suddenly seemed less of a nuisance. He still felt no love for his wife, no real affection. Women had always made him uncomfortable, bored and irritated him; he never knew what he was supposed to say or do around them, and it had not been any different with Selyse. But her occasional company and even having to share her bed once in a while had seemed a small price to pay for an heir, a son, a little boy he could raise properly after Renly had been lost to him. The promise of finally having a son of his own had brought a happiness into his life that he hadn't felt since before his parents' death.

He must have been pale, for one of the servants brought him a chair, and he sank down on it gratefully. After hours of pacing his knees almost buckled underneath him. There was an unfamiliar burn in his eyes, and when he lifted his hand to rub them he was surprised to feel moisture on his fingers. He hadn't cried since his childhood.

"My lord?" Stannis looked up, noticing with confused distress that the maester seemed blurry before his eyes. "Are you well?"

The stupor the news had put him in slowly lifted from his mind. He blinked to clear his eyes, the numb quiet of the shock gave way to the sounds of servants running from the room, carrying blood-stained blankets. Stannis had never even flinched at the sight of blood, but now it almost made him sick. All that pain and blood for nothing but a sickly little girl who might not even survive the first weeks, and even if she did, Stannis wouldn't know what to do with her. Watch her grow up so she could marry some fool who would inherit the meagre lands Robert had given him? Not for the first time Stannis wondered if the gods were laughing at him.

He clenched his jaw and wiped his eyes, angry at himself for losing his composure. He could already imagine Robert's mocking words well enough without additional gossip about the Lord of Dragonstone crying like a girl. Still not quite trusting his voice – his throat tingled as if he was about to choke, and he had a foul taste in his mouth – he merely nodded.

"Do you wish to see her, my lord?" Stannis heard a baby cry. He would have expected the sound to make him feel proud, fatherly, but instead it felt like another knife twist. He rose, slowly, and walked towards the now open door, not daring to enter the room. The smell of blood made him feel dizzy. His wife was sitting propped up on the bed, sweaty, she looked exhausted and relieved, smiling at the pink little thing she held in her arms, wrapped in blankets. The smile only faded when she looked up to meet Stannis' eyes.

He kept thinking that he surely ought to feel something, some shred of joy, but he was too numb in his disappointment. The feeling was familiar – once before someone had dangled the thing he desired most in front of his eyes and then snatched it away from him, forcing him to settle for an unwanted replacement. But when Robert had denied him Storm's End and given him Dragonstone instead, Stannis could at least blame him for it, and anger had made the pain more bearable. The only thing he could blame his wife for was giving him false hope, though that was enough to extinguish every bit of sympathy he might have ever had for her.

"You said you were certain." His voice sounded odd to his own ears, as hoarse as if he had been the one screaming for hours.

"I ... I was." She hugged the bundle tighter. "I'm sorry, but ... we will have others, I promise. We will have sons, many sons. Don't you want to see your daughter?"

He did not want to, but he supposed it was his duty. She was his child, after all, even if not the child he had wanted. He stepped closer to look at her – he had always thought that all newborn children looked the same, and knowing that this one was his didn't change his mind. She didn't look any different than a little boy would have, and that brought fresh tears to his eyes, burning as he blinked them away.

"What shall we name her, my lord?" His wife's voice had never sounded more grating, more irritating. Stannis did not meet her eyes, even as he turned his gaze away from his daughter.

"Whatever you like." He could have told her to name the girl Cassana, but he did not want to think of his beloved mother every time he looked at the daughter he never wanted. All those unpleasant nights he had spent in his wife's bed, doing his duty even though he could see how much it seemed to disgust her, feeling as unloved and unwelcome as he did around his brothers, and it had all been in vain. He left before she could reply, he did not have the patience now to discuss names.

Stannis hurried towards his chambers, even though it was only afternoon. He could not risk running into Robert now. His brother's taunts were hard enough to endure on a normal day, and today Stannis did not trust himself to keep his composure. It was unnerving how little interest Robert seemed to have in the son his Lannister wife had given him. Stannis couldn't help but hate him even more for shunning the things he could not have, especially since Robert seemed to take a perverse pleasure in reminding Stannis of his misery. Stannis did not know what he had ever done to earn his brother's hatred, but he certainly did not have the nerve to expose himself to it now.

It was a small mercy that he did not encounter anyone on his way. His throat still felt constricted, his eyes burnt. He was not superstitious, it was probably only the maester's words, but he felt a sickening certainty that this woman would never give him the son he wanted. He would try again, like he had to, and yet the hope of the past months had been shattered, and he vowed that he would never allow himself to hope again.

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><p>Davos had been on his way to Lady Selyse's chambers to congratulate Stannis, even though he was quite sure that his lord's wife herself would not wish to see him. As he was walking through the long corridors of the keep, he was surprised to see Stannis coming from the opposite direction, walking quickly towards his chambers. Stannis didn't seem to notice him until Davos cleared his throat.<p>

"I was looking for you, my lord," he said softly and stepped closer. Stannis looked up, surprise, even shock plain on his face.

"You've found me." He didn't sound very happy about it.

"You're not with Lady Selyse," Davos observed and furrowed his brow in concern. "Did everything go well?"

Stannis stared at him for a moment, then he merely shook his head and went into his chambers. He didn't close the door behind himself, and Davos interpreted that as an invitation to come in. He followed Stannis hesitantly, wondering what had happened. Had Lady Selyse lost the child? Or even, gods forbid, died herself?

To Davos' surprise Stannis poured them both a glass of wine, full to the brim. He rarely drank, and even then he usually watered down his wine. Davos could see him more clearly now in the afternoon light of his chambers than he had in the dim corridor: Stannis was pale, the circles under his eyes were like black bruises, his dark blue eyes were lined with red. If he were any other man Davos would have thought that he had been crying.

Stannis just stood there in the middle of the room, staring down at the glasses in his hands, and his voice sounded distant when he said, "She gave me a daughter."

Davos' first instinct was to congratulate him in relief, but he stopped himself just in time. Over the last months he had stopped counting the evenings Stannis had spent talking about his son, about all the things he would show and teach him. Davos had never suspected that his serious, sad young lord could smile so much. And he had offered stories of his own in return, had talked of his own sons and their antics: of that one time Dale had fallen into the sea and almost drowned, of Allard and Matthos who looked so much alike that people kept mistaking them for twins, of brave, stubborn Maric who always insisted that he could do everything his big brothers did, of little Devan who was just learning to walk. When his Marya had first been with child, Davos had been so overjoyed that he couldn't have cared less if she gave him a boy or a girl, but he loved her, while he knew that Stannis had married for no other reason than to have a son.

"Your lady wife is still young, my lord," Davos said, choosing his words carefully. "She can give you many more children, boys and girls."

Stannis looked up, anger flashing through his eyes, like a storm rising over the sea. His anger was different from his brother's, a quiet fury that seemed all the more threatening because it was always suppressed. He was grinding his teeth again, obviously trying to pull himself together.

"The maester says she may be too weak to give birth a second time," Stannis replied, his voice forcedly even. A bitter smile played around his lips, more like the expressions Davos had grown used to before Lady Selyse's announcement than like the smiles of the last months. "I should have married a carpenter's daughter, it seems they have more strength."

"You know how maesters are, my lord, always overly cautious. Your wife probably only needs a bit longer to recover -"

"Spare me the platitudes, Davos, I will have to endure those from everyone else," Stannis snapped. His voice was rough, impatient, hurt. Davos stepped closer, although he wasn't quite sure what he could do, quietly accepted the glass Stannis put into his hand before taking a gulp of his own.

"Was it too much to hope for?" Stannis continued after a pause, glaring at Davos as if he expected an answer. "I didn't expect much from her, and even that she could not give. I wasn't looking for love, not even for company, all I wanted was a son -" His voice failed him, broke almost. His hand trembled, and Davos quickly took the cup from his fingers before Stannis could drop it. His lord did not resist, his fingers slack for a moment before they clenched into a fist.

"It is not her fault," Davos said gently, even though he knew he was inviting Stannis' wrath. But while he had no love for his lord's wife, who always looked at him as if he was dirt, he still felt sorry for her – it was easy enough to imagine how Stannis would treat her after this. If he had been cold before, he would be glacial now.

"I know it is not her fault!" Stannis burst out. "How I wish it was _somebody_'s fault rather than just -" Again, he interrupted himself. Stannis did not believe in fate nor in gods, Davos knew, he had no use for superstition nor faith, and yet he had to wonder sometimes why the world denied him everything while granting others their every wish.

Stannis looked at him, and the raw pain in his eyes made Davos' heart ache. He wanted to comfort him, but what comfort could he offer a man who had lost the last thing he had bet his happiness upon?

"You have five sons, Davos, five ... and if any man ever deserved to be blessed with five sons, it is you. But don't I deserve at least one? Don't I deserve _something_?"

"You deserve everything, my lord," Davos said. He would not touch his lord under normal circumstances, but he had never seen Stannis so beside himself. He had seen him angry, at Robert usually, but Stannis could deal with anger. Yet he seemed utterly helpless when faced with a stroke of fate he could fault no one for. Davos raised his hand, maimed fingers coming to rest on Stannis' shoulder, and to his relief Stannis did not pull away. He felt hard, too tense muscles twitch underneath the fabric. "You once told me that lords need to be all the more just because the world is not. That you would always give me what I deserve, but that I should not be naive enough to expect justice or fairness from anyone else."

He felt Stannis lean against his grasp, then one strong, firm hand came to rest on his own, as if to keep him from pulling back. Davos sometimes forgot that Stannis was younger than him – he was usually so serious, so mature, wise and thoughtful beyond his years. The serious youth who had held Storm's End against all odds had grown up too quickly, hardened by war and humiliation, but in this moment Stannis reminded Davos of that exhausted, starved boy who looked like he wanted to lie down and die and was only held up by sheer will power and determination.

"I was a fool to hope for anything else," Stannis said quietly, his breath brushing Davos' wrist.

"Everybody has hopes, my lord, you should not chide yourself for it."

"Hope is for the young and the foolish." He took a deep breath. "I will do my duty by my daughter."

_Yes, but you will never love her, never see anything in her but the son you did not have._ Davos knew better than to voice that thought, so he simply nodded, hand tightening on Stannis' shoulder. His lord was still not letting him go, and for a moment Stannis' grasp on his maimed fingers was almost painful. Not for the first time Davos wondered how much more Stannis could take, now that even his last hope had been burnt away by bitterness.

"And by my wife," Stannis added after a pause, sounding calmer. It was as if duty was his only anchor in life, the thing he clung to when all else failed him. "You are right, Davos, _may_ is not _will_, and she could still be able to give me a son." He did not sound as if he believed in his own words. Davos didn't answer; he had no comfort to offer, and Stannis was not a man to appreciate reassuring lies.

Stannis' pushed Davos' hand off his shoulder, but his fingers stayed curled around Davos'. For a moment he stared down at their hands, caught by some odd fascination he seemed to have for the scarred stumps. Without thinking Davos raised his right hand to the pouch around his neck.

"Life has been good to you, smuggler," Stannis said quietly, but there was no jealousy in his voice. Stannis resented so easily, yet he never seemed to begrudge Davos his happiness.

"No, my lord, _you _have been good to me. Everything else I have ... My wife has given me my sons, but you have given me the means to feed and clothe them, you taught me to raise them to be better men than I was." He smiled a little. "Life has rewarded me as unfairly as it has punished you."

"No man deserves these rewards more than you, Davos." Once again Stannis' fingers brushed over his before he let go. Davos cold see how the mask of stone settled on Stannis' face again, his jaw clenched, every muscle in his face seemed to be taut, the angry frown almost managed to hide his pain, had it not been for the bruised, vulnerable expression in his eyes.

"I need to go to my study, it is too early to retire," Stannis said, his voice steeled.

"It is not my place to tell you what to do -"

"But you will do so nonetheless," Stannis commented dryly, but Davos only smiled.

"What you need is not more work, but rest. I know that you have barely slept in days, you're exhausted."

"Remind me when I gave you permission to be so insolent?" Stannis grumbled, but Davos was not worried. It was good if his lord talked at least, for the darker his mood got, the quieter he became.

"When you knighted me and told me I shouldn't let it turn me into a courtier." Davos still remembered that day, how he had supped with Stannis after the knighting.

_But what does a knight do, m'lord?_

_Judging by my peers, a knight visits tailors and brothels, he flatters and jests and makes sure never to do anything useful._

It had taken Davos a moment to realise that this was Stannis' idea of a joke, but when he had laughed, he had felt Stannis smile at him, so shortly that Davos only saw it out of the corner of his eye. It had been at a time when even Stannis had thought that Robert's victory would change his life for the better.

"I will leave you to your rest," Davos said. Stannis appreciated his honesty, he knew, but there was only so much honesty a man could stomach in his current state.

"No, stay," Stannis said quietly. He had picked up his wine glass again and finished it. "I won't be able to sleep. Stay."

Davos stayed. He would always stay when Stannis needed him.


End file.
